"So simple and elegant, yet extremely powerful."
— PSE User
PSE is an application server framework that lets you build complex web-based applications in the Python programming language. As an Apache module built using mod_python, PSE parses your templates into byte compiled "servlets" to produce web pages that run fast. Since it only executes byte compiled Python, there is no need for parsing the files on each request, as with PHP or other web application servers.
Each servlet has two components: the template and the code module. This architecture allows the separation of presentation and implementation, so that the HTML designer can work almost independently of Python programmer, and vice versa.
The template file is a valid HTML file with processing instructions and/or custom tags defined by the programmer. This file is parsed and translated into an executable Python script, which is compiled and stored. The code module is a regular Python module with the same base file name as the template. It is also compiled and stored in the same way that Python itself compiles and stores modules.
Alternatively, you can use the included compile tool to combine both pieces into a single servlet file. If a directory only consists of compiled files, PSE will only use them and never look for the source files. This way users of the application will never have to experience a delay due to parsing and compiling of any files, and you can distribute only optimized byte compiled files to protect your intellectual property in the source code.